It's not often that a product works and does what it is advertised to do right out of the box. This is one of those products. I have tested it with dust from the vacuum, sawdust from my old separator and even ashes from my charcoal bbq. Little to no dust from any of these made it into either my central vac or my shop vac. I can't begin to tell you enough how well this little marvel works. The Dust Deputy
I don't usually write to dispute other reviews, but I will make an exception here.
I have used the Dust Deputy (bought the $99 kit), for about a month now, mostly for dust collection on my Jet 16-32 drum sander, and the thing is freakin' amazing.
I have a 6HP Sears shop vac. Nothing fancy for sure. I use it for shop cleanup and to collect dust from the sander, which puts out a very fine dust. Without the Dust Deputy the filter would clog up in less than 30 minutes of use. With the Dust Deputy in use, I have yet to have to clean the filter! Unbelievable time saver, not to mention the hassle of having to "suit up" every time I clean out the filter.
So, not sure what other users were doing with their dust deputy that they say did not work, but mine works perfectly, even when sanding at #220 grit.
The only other complaint I have seen around the Interwebs is that the plastic cyclone is fragile and does not stand up to dropping/falling. (duh) So do anchor the Dust Deputy to your shop vac, or buy the very expensive metal cyclone. It's quite easy to do, especially if you get the whole kit. I had mine on in less than 30 minutes. If you don't get the kit, definitely use the two bucket system so you can easily remove the inner bucket to dump the dust. And don't let too much dust accumulate or eventually it will bypass the cyclone.
This thing is incredible. I inherited a house with a block shed behind it. The block shed had been over run by rats for years so you can imagine what I had to deal with. YUCK. I didn't want to mess up my shop vac so I tried this. Man was I impressed. The only thing that went into my shop vac was a very light layer of dust and some real small pieces of plastic. That was it. I cleaned up two buckets of debris just cleaning the attic area. And to empty is so much easier that a shop vac. It is smaller and easier to handle. The kit was easy to assemble too.
This thing works like a charm and has made a huge difference both in the life and function of my shop vac filters and in the cleanliness of my shop. The only negative is the cost. It is a simple thing and if I were more capable or less lazy, I would have built my own. Plans and calculation guides for cyclones are all over the internet. However my sloth is not the tool's fault. Highly recommended.
I bought the Dust Deputy to go together with a Paint Shaver Pro I also bought. The both of them are being used to remove many layers of paint from a 97 year-old house.
The Dust Duty is connected to the Paint Shaver (and a random orbital sander) and in turn a ShopVac creates the vacuum in the Dust Deputy.
I can't say enough good about the Dust Deputy. It collects gallons and gallons of paint and wood dust and the filter in the ShopVac can run for days without being cleaned of the very fine dust which is the only thing that gets through the Dust Deputy.
My only difficulty with the Dust Deputy is adapting it to the 1-1/4 inch hoses from the ShopVac, Paint Shaver and orbital sander. I bought a set of adaptors from Oneida to adapt the Dust Deputy to that size, but the adaptors really aren't satisfactory for the purpose, and I had to use duck tape to attach the Dust Deputy inlet port to the tools. I really wish Oneida would come up with some more adaptable adaptors!
Otherwise, I am very happy.
I have been looking at one of these for years. I finally bought one a few months ago after they included some foam blocks and bolts to physically attach it to my shop vac. I wanted the unit to be mobile and not have to drag it or a separate cart around. I got it home, hooked it up to my Craftsman 6.5hp shop vac and voila, it worked like advertised. I used it with my Bosch portable table saw. Like others, I was happy to see that most of the debris was staying in the bucket. I did notice a lot of dust coming out the saw blade and other spots, however, I figured that I just needed to use a zero clearance insert.
The problem:
I was using my shop vac to do some clean up on a job sight and something just didn't seem right. My vacuum is powerful enough to pick up nails and it just wasn't doing the trick. I disconnected the Dust Deputy and used just the vac. The power was at least doubled. This was very upsetting since the impression I had gotten from Dyson and other vacs is that cyclones would maintain or increase suction.
The solution:
I was lucky enough to talk to an Oneida Rep recently at a woodworking show. I told him of my problem and how disappointed I was. He told me that the Dust Deputy obviously didn't have enough air flow for my shop vac because the vac was just to powerful. He told me how to resolve the problem. I would need two units hooked up to my vac. One hose from the vac that would "Y" to the two Dust Deputies and then two hoses from the dust deputies that would "Y" back together to a single hose. Problem solved, however, I wasn't planning on buying 2 of these.
Oneida just recently sent me an email with a Multi Cyclone DIY unit that they are promoting. I think this would also work for my shop vac.
Overall, this is a great idea, but the plastic they use is very delicate and it didn't work for my POWERFUL shop vac as is. This experience will not stop me from buying one of there large dust collectors for my shop. They are, after all, the best you can buy.
It works exactly like advertised. I sucked up a ton of sawdust just after I hooked it up, and there was nothing in the shop vac. Easy to empty, I like that the best.
Things I don't like:
* The hose that comes with it is very stiff and kinks fairly easily. Just makes it a little hard to work with.
* I mounted (bolted) it to the side of my large shop vac. Stays in place just fine, but you won't be able to drag your shop vac around by the hose. You'll need to use one of the other, more complicated and expensive, solutions.
* For what it is, I just think it's too expensive.
I hate dumping my shop vac and cleaning out my HEPA filter, that's the main reason I bought it.
Shop Vac just needs to build a vac with something like this built in - that's not too expensive. - Dust Collector Accessories'
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